French defense - pros and cons

I disagree with multiple points here. We’re actually seeing less Ruy Lopez and more Italian recently due to the dominance of the Berlin and Marshall Attack. Pros still play incredibly exciting and aggressive chess, and while there are incredibly drawish GMs and GM games, many are not and play for the win. Gotham is an absolutely HORRIFIC content creator in regards to opening theory, and he says as much. His target audience is the U1200 crowd, which makes up roughly 90% of chess.com players, but for players like you his recommendations would likely actively harm your chess. Blitz and rapid tournaments are certainly refreshing and interesting, but I only think this is the case as long as they exist alongside classical tournaments rather than replacing them entirely.

Did you watch the most recent WCC where a Tarrasch French and non-Qb6 London were both played in Classical? You don’t know what you’re talking about.

besides, that complaint makes zero sense

if two players of low strength played over and over vs each other, we would get mostly the same opening with one player as white and another with the same opening as black

gms have infinitely more variable repertoires

IMO or IMAO

1 : I want to say it is rather the game of chess itself which is sharp, difficult etc. if we are not in "easy winning positions" or "easy draws positions" .

2 : Lots of variations are "at the base easy to play strategically".

It's like o-o-o vs o-o attack, KID strategy, isolated pawn position or insane position (example 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7) it is not "difficult to play strategically" but we must not make tactical errors, it is better to calculate, find strong moves etc.

So in short, in the French Defense there may be :

a : 1) e4 e6 2) d4 d5 3) Nc3 Nf6 4) e5 Nfd7 5) f4 c5 6) Nf3 Nc6 7) Be3 cxd4 8) Nxd4 Bc5 9) Qd2 o-o 10) o-o-o it's strategy o-o-o vs o-o

b : 1) e4 e6 2) d3 d5 3) Nd2 c5 4) Ngf3 Nc6 5) g3 Nf6 6) Bg2 Be7 7) o-o o-o I think it's downright a reversed color variant of the KID ( 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.Nc3 o-o 5.e3 d6 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.o-o e5 )

c : 1) e4 e6 2) d4 d5 3) Nd2 c5 4) exd5 exd5 5) Ngf3 Nc6 6) Bb5 Bd6 7) dxc5 Bxc5 isolated pawn position

d : 1) e4 e6 2) d4 d5 3) Nc3 Bb4 4) e5 c5 5) a3 Bxc3+ 6) bxc3 Ne7 7) Qg4 Qc7 8) Qxg7 Rg8 9) Qxh7 cxd4 10) Ne2 insane position

3 : White can also play for a draw or simply in a symmetrical position 1) e4 e6 2) d4 d5 3) exd5 exd5 it's not like a Sicilian Defense where White can find it harder "to find a symmetrical position to play for a draw". And the difficulty of playing the French exchange and a bit the same as the Petrov Defense which means White could play to win and win (otherwise all GM vs GM Petrov games would automatically be draws).

4 : 1) e4 e5 2) Nf3 Nc6 3) Bb5 or 3) Bc4 "it is almost always going to be a tough fight" even if after 1) e4 e5 it could already say equality. 

The main drawback is rather psychological because when we start to lose in a French Defense which is not "a main opening" (it is 1...c5 and 1...e5 "the mains openning" after 1.e4), we can accuse the opening of being bad and that it would be necessary to change the opening while with 1)...e5 or 1)...c5 we won't accuse these openings of being the cause of our defeat because they would be bad. 

Pros: Good counter attacking chances, FANTASTIC endgames, Very ambitious.
Cons: The french bishop, Will have to walk the king in many lines, The poisoned pawn variations.
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/87240009161?tab=review&move=92

This game is a perfect example of having to walk the king.